The Devil’s Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West (mp3 chapters) - Michael Walsh
Language: EnglishKeywords:
America
Critical Theory
Culture
History
Philosophy
Shared by:alnilam
Written by
Read by Michael Walsh
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 32 Kbps
Unabridged
Length: 8h 25m
In the aftermath of World War II, America stood alone as the world’s premier military power.
Yet its martial confidence contrasted vividly with its sense of cultural inferiority.
Still looking to a defeated and dispirited Europe for intellectual and artistic guidance, burgeoning trans-national elite in New York and Washington embraced not only the war’s refugees, but many of their ideas as well, and nothing has proven more pernicious than those of the Frankfurt School and its reactionary philosophy of “critical theory”.
At once overly intellectualized and emotionally juvenile, Critical Theory—like Pandora’s Box—released a horde of demons into the American psyche.
When everything could be questioned, nothing could be real, and the muscular, confident empiricism that had just won the war gave way, in less than a generation, to a central-European nihilism celebrated on college campuses across the United States.
Seizing the high ground of academe and the arts, the New Nihilists set about dissolving the bedrock of the country, from patriotism to marriage to the family to military service; they have sown (as Cardinal Bergoglio—now Pope Francis—once wrote of the Devil) “destruction, division, hatred, and calumny”—and all disguised as the search for truth.
In ‘The Devil’s Pleasure Palace’ we will look at the ways Critical Theory took root in America and, once established and gestated, has affected nearly every aspect of American life and society—and what can be done to stop it.
—
Preface: The Argument
Introduction: Of the Devil’s Pleasure Palace
Chapter 01: Whose Paradise?
Chapter 02: Thesis
Chapter 03: Antithesis
Chapter 04: The Sleep of Pure Reason Produces Monsters
Chapter 05: The Descent into Hell
Chapter 06: The Eternal Feminine
Chapter 07: Of Light and Darkness
Chapter 08: Of Words and Music
Chapter 09: The Venusberg of Death
Chapter 10: World without God, Amen
Chapter 11: Of Eros and Thanatos
Chapter 12: The Consolation of Philosophy
Chapter 13: Mephisto at the Ministry of Love
Chapter 14: The Devil is in the Details
Chapter 15: Oikophobes and Xenophiles
Chapter 16: Good-Bye to All That
Acknowledgments
Index
| Announce URL: | udp://tracker.torrent.eu.org:451/announce |
| This Torrent also has several backup trackers | |
| Tracker: | udp://tracker.torrent.eu.org:451/announce |
| Tracker: | udp://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce |
| Tracker: | http://tracker2.dler.org:80/announce |
| Tracker: | udp://exodus.desync.com:6969/announce |
| Tracker: | udp://tracker.tiny-vps.com:6969/announce |
| Tracker: | udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:80/announce |
| Tracker: | udp://tracker.leechers-paradise.org:6969 |
| Tracker: | udp://tracker.coppersurfer.tk:6969 |
| Tracker: | udp://tracker.open-internet.nl:6969/announce |
| Tracker: | udp://open.demonii.si:1337/announce |
| Tracker: | udp://thetracker.org:80/announce |
| Tracker: | http://open.trackerlist.xyz:80/announce |
| Creation Date: | Thu, 15 Jul 2021 15:48:22 +0200 |
| This is a Multifile Torrent | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 01.mp3 4.81 MBs | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 02.mp3 4.38 MBs | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 03.mp3 7.85 MBs | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 04.mp3 3.7 MBs | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 05.mp3 8.35 MBs | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 06.mp3 5.95 MBs | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 07.mp3 4.7 MBs | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 08.mp3 10.18 MBs | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 09.mp3 11.74 MBs | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 10.mp3 5.5 MBs | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 11.mp3 6.74 MBs | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 12.mp3 5.75 MBs | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 13.mp3 3.34 MBs | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 14.mp3 7.9 MBs | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 15.mp3 6.4 MBs | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 16.mp3 3.55 MBs | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 17.mp3 7.42 MBs | |
| The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory 18.mp3 7.89 MBs | |
| Walsh, Michael - The Devil’s Pleasure Palace—The Cult of Critical Theory (2015).epub 1.08 MBs | |
| Combined File Size: | 117.24 MBs |
| Piece Size: | 64 KBs |
| Comment: | Updated by AudioBook Bay |
| Encoding: | UTF-8 |
| Info Hash: | 5853d12c7788f88465a1fe104b70907a6bbea123 |
| Torrent Download | Torrent Free Downloads |
| Tips | Sometimes the torrent health info isn’t accurate, so you can download the file and check it out or try the following downloads. |
| Direct Download | Start Direct Download |
| Tips | You could try out alternative bittorrent clients. |
| Secured Download | Download Files Now |
| Ad |
|
This post has 54 comments with rating of 3.7/5
July 15th, 2021
The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau. What an alluring utopia! What a noble cause to fight for!
—Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy
July 15th, 2021
Because critical theory and critical race theory are the same thing. Obviously.
I’m honestly embarrassed I used to take people like Walsh seriously.
July 15th, 2021
American conservatives do love to chase fictional squirrels. In the meantime their working and social conditions are half a century behind all the other wealthy democracies.
July 15th, 2021
Doe anyone actually read these books?
July 15th, 2021
> Because critical theory and critical race theory are the same thing. Obviously.
You are correct, Critical Theory is “a broader umbrella”, compared to Critical Race Theory:
What is the Difference Between Critical Theory and Critical Race Theory? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McgJpZ8k0Ao
July 15th, 2021
For those of you who haven’t been formally introduced to the sociological doomsday weapon of the 20th century, Critical Theory is an approach to analyzing society not for the purpose of understanding it, but for the purpose of transforming it by undermining its existing institutions. The hard work of understanding how and why people do things is unnecessary if your goal is merely to take a sledgehammer to the machinery. Critical Theory is the invention of the Marxist Frankfort School of the 1930s, so, as one might expect, it re-interprets everything it looks at through a Marxist (or neo-Marxist) lens. The women’s studies, racial studies, and gender studies curricula found in almost every university in the West are the direct products of the more general Critical Theory program. Many things that end in “theory” (e.g., deconstruction theory, queer theory) are also critical theory’s progeny.
The connection between Critical Theory and Marxism is neither disputable nor often denied. The discipline’s formulators (Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin, et al) were all self-identified Marxists teaching in an avowedly Marxist school. Modern academic proponents of Critical Theory and its descendants do not go to any great lengths to deny either the discipline’s origins or their own fundamentally Marxist intentions. Only the mainstream media, renowned for denying the existence of gorillas discovered in plain sight, deny that the echoes they make in their echo chambers have a distinctly German socialist accent.
Deconstructing Marxist Critical Theory by E.M. Cadwaladr | Jan 4, 2018 https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/01/deconstructing_marxist_critical_theory.html
July 15th, 2021
@alnilam please, I urge you to speak to someone. You may genuinely have paranoid schizophrenia.
July 15th, 2021
A work of outstanding finesse. Thank you
July 15th, 2021
> I urge you to speak to someone. You may genuinely have paranoid schizophrenia.
Why do I have a feeling that certain “concerned forum members”, given a chance, will not stop at just providing such “recommendations”?
July 15th, 2021
Because you’re very obviously not well. That would explain why you have such bizarre feelings.
You are allowed to acknowledge me directly. You don’t have to be scared and refer to me as “certain people”. Everyone is aware of who you mean, and it’ll save you some time and energy. It’s okay.
July 15th, 2021
On a historical note: in the former Soviet Union, such medical diagnoses were routinely used to punish & contain “enemies of the state” & ideological dissidents of any kind. Always the charges were nebulous, because they were entirely immaterial in any jurisprudential, medical, therapeutic or moral sense.
In such regimes, any dissent equals insanity. And the diagnosis is utilised as a pretext for torture, at which they always excel.
One inst: in 1961, Pyotr Grigorenko criticised the actions of the Khrushchev regime at a party meeting. He was consigned to an asylum as a “schizophrenic.”
July 15th, 2021
> Because you’re very obviously not well…
ABB is not a psychiatric ward, where any self-anointed “doctors” are allowed to practice. When it comes to the COMMENTS section, it’s more like a playground for trolls, always ready to attack PERSONS and distract readers from BOOKS and IDEAS the trolls happen to dislike.
July 15th, 2021
@alnilam thing is, I’m not too fussed about your ideas. It’s the constant unprovoked ramblings and inability to communicate like a human being which come across as alarming. You’ve written multiple paragraphs defending a point which most people barely care about enough to leave a one sentence review.
I’m accusing you of being mentally unwell, not because of your ideas, but because you present yourself in a manner strikingly similar to someone I know who actually has paranoid schizophrenia.
July 15th, 2021
America is doomed. The worst is that this ignorance is exported to us through the Internet. We are all doomed while our standards of living decline and the rich get richer. What a way to waste your outrage.
July 15th, 2021
Cult B begins to supplant cult A in number of subscribers.
Cult A is frustrated.
> Throughout, I refer to this cabal as the Unholy Left, a term unapologetically both descriptive and judgmental. It is a term I suspect they would dearly like to embrace but can’t quite bring themselves to yet, if only for electoral reasons.
This is false. Cult B members believe themselves to be righteous and holy, set apart, in exactly the same way as do cult A members.
> Rather, I refer to the hard Left, the radicals, many of whom are now in power
In power where? Since at least the 1980s, power has been held exclusively by money chasers working for corporations, with appeals to cult A and now also cult B used only as a way to get in the door.
> Instead, it seeks a larger, dare one say, “comprehensive” target: a revenge on a society that remains distressingly what it is and that adamantly refuses to become what, by their lights, it should be.
This entire book is “my enemy is weak and pathetic but also strong and a threat”.
And all these references to Paradise Lost, Princess Bride, John Wayne, Joseph Campbell, The Godfather, bit-from-1984, like please read a book, preferably starting with one of Orwells so you understand he is saying the exact opposite of what you think he’s saying.
July 15th, 2021
alnilam, you make my head hurt. This is a good thing, I wish my school teachers had made this happen, I could have ended up with more respect for the teaching professison.
July 15th, 2021
Back in the Dark Ages, the Catholic church discouraged common folk from learning to read, considering literacy the province of the clergy.
They did this because if the common folk were capable of reading the Bible, they might disagree with church authorities as to whether or not the Bible said what the church claimed it said. Many of those burned at the stake as witches and heretics were simply educated people who disagreed with church doctrine.
Ignorance is the very first tool in the toolkit of authoritarian regimes to prevent the populace from questioning what they claim to be the “truth”.
Which is why the American political right has spent the better part of the last century maligning higher education and undermining primary education.
July 15th, 2021
Just in case anyone is interested here’s wikipedia on critical theory:
Max Horkheimer first defined critical theory (German: Kritische Theorie) in his 1937 essay “Traditional and Critical Theory”, as a social theory oriented toward critiquing and changing society as a whole, in contrast to traditional theory oriented only toward understanding or explaining it. Wanting to distinguish critical theory as a radical, emancipatory form of Marxist philosophy, Horkheimer … described a theory as critical insofar as it seeks “to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them.”
July 15th, 2021
Just a few cheerful corrections: medievalists go nuts when punters situate the witch craze within their domain of specialisation. It was principally a post-(fourth) Renaissance, northern-European phenomenon (1580-1640).
The term “Dark Ages” is also rejected for the medieval period by academics & pointy headed types. It’s an historiographical term of art applied to phases for which there is an absence of written sources, such as ancient Greece (prior to the Archaic Age) when literacy itself was lost.
The Church, far from discouraging literacy, actually preserved & spread it. They worked to preserve as many literary works as possible; created the university & schools throughout Europe (Ovid’s Metamorphoses was one of the text books, used in teaching literacy. A really cool, clever bk).
Flash cards are great for historical study, as in so much else.
Very true that ideologies leverage ignorance - particularly ignorance of history - with their many applications of the sinister “Memory Hole” device.
July 15th, 2021
^ Largely correct, except maybe by omission. There were also early christian-led heretical-book-purgings, but this is a common feature to many changings of power, religious or otherwise. See a certain chinese emperor for a notorious example.
And the church did preserve older works, but gave some preferential treatment to certain secular thinkers whose ideas were deemed more christianity-compatible, like plato and aristotle, while others were left to degrade naturally through neglect.
July 15th, 2021
Well, I used the Ovid example specifically because it was not the work of a “secular thinker whose ideas were deemed more Christianity-compatible.” In fact some of it is definitively doctrinally dicey. You know I didn’t come up the Tiber yesterday, h. I anticipate the Tartarus outta these things.
The project to preserve books was promoted throughout Europe (scriptoria), and there are many works that you wouldn’t expect them to preserve for the reasons you noted, such as Ovid. There was a profound respect for the written word, which, given the grim nature of so much history, is truly heartening to read about. The Carolingian Renaissance, for inst, was about preserving all & any written works.
The proscription of literature, in a truly organised fashion, is more of a dystopian, bureaucratic modern state phenomenon.
July 15th, 2021
That Chinese chap, he was the dood who was none too fond of the great Confucius? Many Confucian scholars came to a sticky sticky.
July 15th, 2021
Meant “thinkers” more specifically, cosmogenic philosophers etc.
That ovid is still around to read today is very nice, though (even if he had the little-trouble-imagining-how-two-girls-might-*****-together man’s bias).
July 15th, 2021
Emperor in question is this fellow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Shi_Huang
Big old wall to the north, thousands of clay soldiers in his tomb, etc. Bit of an inferiority complex maybe.
July 15th, 2021
The very first sentence of the blurb is hilariously illiterate: “… America stood alone as the world’s premier military power.” How can something be the “premier” and not “stand alone”?!? 🤣 🤣 I’m sure the rest of this book is equally confused.
July 15th, 2021
I believe people are saying that particular emperor stood alone as the world’s premier Chinese emperor, so he had nothin’ to prove to the likes of us.
The Chinese practice terracotta diplomacy, in addition to adorably cute panda diplomacy, and we took receipt of some clay warriors in my neck of Europe (they were “all fired up”), for display & ooh-ahh purposes. However, apparently we damaged one of them in transportation (his sense of inferiority broke off, p’haps?). Now there’s speculation that our terracotta privileges have been indefinitely suspended. They’ll probably never trust us with an actual panda again. Honestly, you smash one priceless terracotta warrior…
July 15th, 2021
CRITICAL THEORY: the hard work of understanding how and why people do things is unnecessary if your goal is merely to take a sledgehammer to the machinery.
ABB TROLLS: the hard work of remaining polite and civil with the opponents while staying on the subject is unnecessary if your goal is merely to demean, dehumanize and discredit them.
I would say, what an intriguing similarity.
July 15th, 2021
I see that our resident loonies are here to defend the indefensible again.
To the OP thanks for sharing this, I looking forward to listening to it.
July 16th, 2021
“Seizing the high ground of academe and the arts, the New Nihilists set about…”
Why didn’t you or your granddad stop them? The cream rises to the top right? If you & yours were superior you would have seized it, but you are not. Hence an entire book of whining & excuse making for your failures.
Poor widdle American white boy conservatives. So scared & confused because almost everything you believe in is being rejected by most of the world including your own kids. Oh how you long for a golden age that never was. American white boy conservatives - just another species going extinct because of their inability to adapt:(
July 16th, 2021
@AJRaffle: ah yes, an antisemiic dog whistler.
July 16th, 2021
Kinda sounds like whoever wrote the blurb doesn’t know what the word ‘reactionary’ means.
July 16th, 2021
A great book. Listened to it before, but a great share.
July 16th, 2021
Conservative political ideology is a lot like creationism: The last thing a creationist wants is for you to actually read what evolutionary biologists have to say, because they can’t win the battle of actual facts. They can only convince people by attacking some weird strawman version where monkeys spontaneously give birth to humans. That’s why they set up an entire parallel education system, an entire parallel wikipedia, even an entire parallel google that censors everything that contradicts their story.
So it goes with conservative ideology: They want you to be scared to death of “Cultural Marxism” but they also want you to only learn about it through conservative commentators, lest you actually learn anything. In reality the “critical theory” they despise so much bears as much relationship to the actual work of the Frankfurt school as monkeys giving birth to humans does to evolutionary biology.
So if this book or others like it sound like good, insightful reads to you, read some actual works of critical theory. You might be surprised by what it actually says.
July 16th, 2021
> So if this book or others like it sound like good, insightful reads to you, read some actual works of critical theory. You might be surprised by what it actually says.
Any particular book recommendations?
July 16th, 2021
The superior “cream rises to the top, right?” Yup - and cream is? Rich & thick, m’boy, rich & thick.
July 16th, 2021
> Conservative political ideology is a lot like creationism: The last thing a creationist wants is for you to actually read what evolutionary biologists have to say, because they can’t win the battle of actual facts.
And those “evolutionary biologists” are such clever fellas who always get things right, their word is final and sacred so everybody and his dog absolutely must bend knees and bow in awe.
July 16th, 2021
Cultural Marxism?
If you want to know about this, don’t read books written by intellectuals who reside in comfortable, warm offices cultivating half-baked ideas about a better way of living and working. No. Go and ask those who have been subject Cultural Marxism, those who have witnessed the horror that it brings.
July 16th, 2021
> Cultural Marxism? If you want to know about this, don’t read books written by intellectuals who reside in comfortable, warm offices cultivating half-baked ideas about a better way of living and working.
It is not important were those intellectuals reside, only if they are RIGHT.
> Go and ask those who have been subject Cultural Marxism, those who have witnessed the horror that it brings.
Those people are not exactly hiding, many of them wrote important books on the subject, anyone can read them.
July 16th, 2021
Correction: many of them *have written* important books on the subject…
July 16th, 2021
@micamica2, It’s really bizarre to be making that argument, while the left is hard at working censoring opposing views from internet platforms, booksellers, etc. And I don’t even like Walsh or the neocon rags he’s associated with.
July 16th, 2021
Given that CT is something of a new orthodoxy, & we ought to rationally critique ideological orthodoxies; for those who support, & are even knowledgeable, about CT - what are the principal fallacies, reservations, criticisms & weaknesses of the CT orthodoxy itself that u would offer? I pose this ’cause many evaluate the book’s treatment of the subject 2 b subpar, & inferior 2 their own reading.
That 1’s a bit counterintuitive, & is conseq posed widely, 2 our gentle, considerate community.
July 16th, 2021
This place really could use some UFOlogy books.
July 16th, 2021
There have been many sightings of UFOlogy books on the site.
July 16th, 2021
Sweet lord, you people. I just want to figure out how to get an invite to this ‘pleasure palace’ of which you speak.
July 16th, 2021
…the only positions currently open @ the palace are for ambitious, thrusting eunuchs. Numbers were reduced last year following a particularly cruel cut of eunuchs from the workforce. Hardly a pleasure, cum 2 think of it…
July 17th, 2021
Jack_Milad,
Hogwash coming out of your mouth (or keyboard) wheted my appetite for the book.
Would you terribly mind telling me what’s your education and profession?
July 17th, 2021
I know nobody asked, but I’m an auxiliary to a shepherd’s help, in a largely consultative capacity (I was formerly formally a hired goon & henchman).
I didn’t pursue the role I’m qualified in (I graduated as a shower curtain ring salesman).
July 18th, 2021
@au970 wow, that’s amazing. You got excited about this book just because I commented on it? Even when my comments didn’t acknowledge the content of the book itself.
I need to start commenting on some of the homoerotic romance novels on here too. See if that works across the board, or just on things you were likely to check out anyway.
July 18th, 2021
Thank you, alnilam! I’m looking forward to this and Inventing Freedom, too :-)
July 27th, 2021
thesE Days THEy loCK yOu Up jUsT FOR beiNg A STrAight wHITE MaN
October 14th, 2021
Pay no heed to butt-hurt commies that smell queer and hate freedom.
May 31st, 2022
good book. the left hates reading from anyone who doesnt follow their ideology.
August 27th, 2022
You have no understanding of critical theory.
-a sociology major who’s sick of your repugnant comments.
August 27th, 2022
@arr321
“The left hates reading low quality books.”
Less words and higher accuracy.
Add a comment (please log in before commenting)